You should already be aware that this year’s “Shark Week” on Discovery channel started yesterday. In honor of this great event (yes, I love Shark Week!) I’ll be posting a few times this week about the shows that air. This multimedia Monday is all about the Shark Week website, it has videos, games, pictures, interactive guides; let’s just say this post is very geeky but very awesome nonetheless.
Anyone living in Florida, or even someone that visits it often has to be somewhat interested in sharks. I mean, how could you not be given the stats?
I’m a little disappointed this chart doesn’t have 2007. While 2007 was supposedly a low year for shark attacks, Florida had 32, highest in the world, followed by Hawai’i, which had seven. That’s a big difference.
While I don’t play many online games, Discovery keeps advertising their “critically acclaimed” Shark Runners game so I had to play it to see what all the hype was about. The goal is to track down sharks and collect data on them, but the cool thing is is that it is using real sharks and their real movements, taking advantage of GPS tracking. But then when I got to the part of the site where I realize that the game is going on all the time and it’s going to email me alerts giving a certain amount of time for me to log back in a do something, I decided this was something I didn’t want to get into. If you want to try it out, let us know what you think in the comments.
I did try some other games, though some of them aren’t really games, like voting for the coolest shark? I guess voting is a game for some people…I actually prefer other games on discovery.com that are not part of Shark Week, like Life or Death: Lost at Sea. Basically you’re given sets of three items to choose from and you have to choose the right items that will keep you alive, it’s tricky.
While Discovery does have great pictures on the site, like this one:
if you want something high enough resolution for a wallpaper or if you want a shark screensaver, NationalGeographic is your best bet.
The best parts of the website are the interactive features, like the dive, and the pictures. But really, I think the site could have been better. I especially don’t like that they don’t have an option to embed their videos (though the videos are great), and the commercials before them are extremely loud compared to the actual video.
As for the shows though, what I’ve seen so far is awesome. I love MythBusters anyway and the Shark Week Special that aired last night was not to be missed (if you didn’t see it, it airs again Wednesday). See a clip of the robotic shark they created here.
I’m also looking forward to Dirty Jobs tomorrow night. Mike thinks they should have monkey week.
I missed multimedia Monday yesterday, so here are some things you may have missed.
John Mayer had a TV show, appropriately titled “John Mayer has a TV Show.” Watch John Mayer talk to his fans undercover in a bear suit, discuss country and hip-hop music, and talk about boobies. (while it is censored for cable, it’s still on the PG-13 side)
While you may know that actress Scarlett Johansson released a Tom Waits cover album, you may have missed the fact that it’s actually pretty good. And that’s coming from a trained vocalist (you may have missed that I’m a trained—or as we say, tamed—vocalist as well, bonus!) who is very critical of fellow female singers. Listen to “Anywhere I Lay My Head” here.
You’ve probably heard it a thousand times without even realizing it, the Wihelm Scream is probably the most commonly used sound effect. Here’s a compilation:
And now, the final and most fantastic thing you may have missed. There is now an official release date for Woven Hand’s upcoming album, “Ten Stones.” September 9 it is!
You’re thrilled I can tell. More info and a song on the Sounds Familyre blog.
National Geographic takes an interactive look at how our PCs are harming our environment and our health after we “dispose” of them. If you’ve ever thrown away or even recycled a computer or plan on doing so (and who doesn’t at some point), you need to take a look.
Okay, this one’s more fun. The New York Times does a side-by-side of the old “Get Smart” television series and the new movie. I may not have been thought of yet when the series was originally on air, but I watched it every night on Nick-at-Night when I was younger.
Speaking of “Get Smart,” did anyone see the TV Land awards? Aside from aging (gracefully) Barbara Feldon has not changed at all.
This coming Thursday, March 20, would have been Mister Rogers’ 80th birthday, and in honor of the best neighbor ever it is Sweater Day. Weather permitting, I will be wearing a sweater, how about you?
At this moment I am drinking my coffee with granulated sugar. I am not a happy camper. While I only have a few snobberies about my coffee, this is one of them. It reminds me from part of the movie Le Divorce, where Naomi Watts’ character feels insulted by her mother-in-law calling her use of sugar grains “original.”
“Sugar grains. Original.”
Meaning how bizarre.
Meaning, “Why don’t you have sugar cubes
like a proper French girl?”
I’m also listening to the music you guys recommended right now and will make a post about it shortly. Though I should be finishing up this book I’m writing a review of for the school paper, and doing my other school-related reading.
Tuesday night I turned the TV to Bravo hoping to catch the repeat of that night’s Kathy Griffin: My Life on the D-List, but I was too early. Instead I caught an episode of Hey Paula. I had previously said to myself that I had no desire to watch this show; I don’t like to know much about the lives, or personalities, of singers and actors, I’m afraid it will cause me to have a bias in how I take in their work (though I did watch Being Bobby Brown, ’cause that was just freaking hilarious, and I was never a big fan of him or Whitney anyway). Being that Paula Abdul is someone that I admired greatly when I was younger, I didn’t want anything to taint that memory.
I watched the show anyway, most of the time thinking “Oh my gosh, are you drunk?” as were all of the reporters she interviewed with. She would either not pay attention to their questions or answer with something totally off the wall, it was actually pretty amusing. They said it was mostly from lack of sleep (she has insomnia), and nerves.
I never imagined she was such a diva either, “I’m tired of everyone not treating me like the gift that I am,” awesome! She never has any money on her (which I can understand, as I often don’t have cash either), and is constantly getting someone in her entourage to pay her way. That can seem a bit like she just thinks she entitled to it, that she shouldn’t have to pay for anything, but I just found it really, really funny. You have to see her in the situation to really get it.
After watching the show I’m left with a strong impression, and a hope really, that it is all a joke, some kind of publicity stunt.
